If you thought Brussels was tough, wait until corporate America writes the rules

The ‘brave new world of free trade’ envisaged by Liam Fox could undermine our legal system, add to the NHS’s woes and set back City regulation for years

‘The City of London will want to use a trade agreement to lock in financial deregulation – making proposals to break up big banks or impose a financial transactions tax extremely difficult.’
Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Liam Fox announced today that Britain is “embracing the brave new world of free trade”. Donald Trump has put us somewhere vaguely near the front of the queue for a British-American trade deal – if his comments to Michael Gove are to believed. MPs brag about how much easier it will be for us to finalise British trade deals than when we have to deal with those dysfunctional Europeans. It seems like we have a bright trading future ahead of us.

But even if all of this comes to pass, and it’s a massive “if”, we should hold back on the celebrations because these new trade deals could make the toxic transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership look positively progressive by comparison.

If you thought the European Union was undemocratic, you’ll be truly shocked by the lack of power Westminster has to scrutinise trade deals. This week I took part in a one-hour briefing of parliament’s international trade committee about the controversial EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which could partially come into force in Britain in the next few months.

This deal will affect our public services, our ability to fight climate change and how our laws are made. The British government has given fulsome support, but my one-hour session was the only time MPs have ever discussed it. In all likelihood, it will come into effect without a single debate in parliament.

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Even when parliament does discuss trade deals, MPs have no power to amend them. All they can do, if they’re lucky, is say yes or no at the end. Most get waved through. Given this gaping democratic deficit, trade deals could well be swiftly concluded but what on earth will they contain? Trump has already made very clear that the US has been too generous to trade partners in previous deals. So what might he have in store for us?

First, the hated Investor-State Dispute Settlement, which allows foreign corporations to sue governments for passing regulations that damage corporate profits, will almost certainly be included. Even the European commission’s tame amendments to this anti-democratic system (such as, for instance, giving countries the right to appeal and holding sessions in public) are too much for the US.

In the likely event that a US-UK trade deal includes the most extreme version of this “corporate court” system, corporations will suddenly be able to sue Britain for doing almost anything they don’t like – environmental protection, regulating finance, renationalising public services, anti-smoking policies – you name it.

And what would US business want out of a trade deal with Britain? Its massive private healthcare industry positively drools over the thought of getting its hands on the NHS. Any trade deal we did would be pushed by these healthcare interests trying to lock in further liberalisation of our health service.

‘Trump is hardly an environmentalist and could well push for rules, already proposed in other deals, that makes discriminating between different sorts of fuels impossible.’ Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

Modern trade agreements are increasingly not about tariffs – we have low tariffs with the US anyway – but making sure laws and regulations don’t obstruct the free flow of capital. The US government has always been clear that our food and farming regulations, which prevent the sort of high-intensity, high-chemical, low-animal welfare farming common in the US, are a “trade barrier”. Any deal will likely look at stripping away regulations on genetic modification, antibiotics and hormone use in farming. In turn, this will open up our small farmers to devastating competition with US agribusiness.

The US is extremely hot on intellectual property rules, and will push to protect the privilege of pharmaceutical copyright – at a cost to the NHS – and harsher copyright laws in general. It has been particularly interested in overturning laws that force foreign companies to keep data on local servers. That means allowing the Silicon Valley industries to move your data to the US, where they don’t have to abide by European laws on data privacy.

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Trump is hardly an environmentalist and could well push for rules, already proposed in other deals, that makes discriminating between different sorts of fuels impossible. In other words, supporting renewables technologies when fossil fuels could do the job could become the basis for a trade dispute.

And while, traditionally, the US has been more progressive on financial regulation than the UK, Trump has already promised to sweep away Barack Obama’s post-crash financial laws. That will be welcomed by the City of London, which will want to use a trade agreement to lock in financial deregulation – making proposals to break up big banks or impose a financial transactions tax extremely difficult.

Finally, let’s remember that outside the EU, we are both less valuable to the US (and other countries) and less able to fight for our own interests. That means we will inevitably have to make more concessions to a particularly aggressive US government. If you were worried about the EU’s constraint of our sovereignty, you’ve seen nothing yet.